Andy's Framing Blog

This was an unusual order from a customer as it is a copper printing plate with a copy of the printed material, which is a wedding invitation to the customer's wedding. Each side had an inner slip frame then a oak 'cathedral' profile was utilised for the outer frame. The two were hinged together using brass hinges.

The back of the frames had a removable back so the plate could easily be removed when it needed cleaning and polishing.

We frame quite a few textile projects and embroideries or tapestries tend to be the most popular. There are the odd enormous projects but overall they tend to be fairly small to medium size. A very useful application for medium size tapestries is to turn them into firescreens. Even if the embroidered area is quite small the frame size can easily be increased with suitable overmounting and framing. The feet and handles are made out of brass and make an attractive addition to any fireplace.

The overall effect is a unique piece of decorative furniture to hide the fireplace when not in use.

You may remember reading about the Invictus Games Georgian Sitting Volleyball Team success on this blog twice before, once for a fourth place and again for an impressive Bronze medal third place. Our customer was previously heard to utter the perhaps fateful words "that's it, no more" when he bought in the Bronze Medal montage. Well I was really pleased to receive a phone call from the same customer who started by saying "you know I said 'that's it, no more'? Well......". Well indeed. This time the Georgian Sitting Volleyball Team won the Gold medal.

The members of the team presented a signed Invictus Games flag to our customer and the montage was completed with the gold medal, a couple of photos and a caption telling the story. I am particularly proud to have framed such a well deserved award and congratulations to the Georgian Sitting Volley Ball Team. Incidentally the next Invictus Games will be held in Sydney, Australia between the 20th and 27th October 2018

This is an amazing piece of embroidery created free hand from a photograph of Steve McQueen.

Once laced over acid free board, the embroidery was framed just simply using a rusty red / brown, open grain moulding and an off white mount to keep the glass away from the stitches. Here is the image the embroidery was created from.

An amazing piece of work of an amazing actor. Favourite Steve McQueen film I hear you ask? Too many to choose from. I'm gonna plump for Great Escape just because he rode the motorcycle himself. I know, cool or what.

For those of you who might be Big Bang Theory fans this really was a 'fun with flags' project where a set of 48 tea cards were framed in one frame. Luckily there weren't an odd number of tea cards so it was decided to make a 3 row by 16 column overmount, cut by hand:

To provide a distinct but not overly dominating frame a simple gold aluminium frame was utilised to finish off the project.

We recently framed these amazing images from an artist called Tjili who was born in Cambodia with cerebral palsy and profound deafness. We used a painted and then limed oak profile to create this effect.

The use of oak allows the grain to remain open and is then exaggerated with a lime effect. This can be achieved with any colour paint and any oak profile. We have written about limed oak and hand painted effects on frames before. However the effects are so varied and can form such a perfect match for any picture they really are worth mentioning again.

Here is the finished effect on two of Tjili's images.

I really love the image of Baloo from one of my favourite films The Jungle Book ("Come on Baggy, get with the beat!"). The limed effect frame really suits the open brush style of Tjili's art. For more information about Tjili's art follow this link.

Just in time for the forthcoming British F1 Grand Prix this weekend at Silverstone we recently framed this trio of former British Grand Prix race winners. The three original pieces of art were created by Dan Binns and more of his work can be found on his website. The work is very appealing as the slightly abstract nature of the artwork makes a nice change to photographs of F1 cars.

A limed oak frame compliments the subject matter very well. The drivers are Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill and Jenson Button.

So you may recall part one of this article about the Invictus Games montage from 2014. Here is what it looked like once framed.

The customer made an interesting statement as I delivered the picture to his home to the effect of "I certainly won't achieve anything better that this in my life." Well, it turned out he was wrong. In the months leading up to the 2016 Invictus Games in Florida, my customer was contacted again by the Georgian Sitting Volleyball Team. This is also, incidentally, after he had helped to secure funding for their own purpose-made sitting volleyball court in their home country of Georgia. No small achievement in itself but this wasn't what the call was about. The Georgian Team wanted him to train them again in Florida. Well of course he was really excited with another opportunity to work with his friends so off he went to Florida.....and came back with this montage:

Unbelievably impressive to have won a bronze medal I would say. The customer wanted a few photos in the montage this time to reflect the mood of the games which alwayswas such passion and commitment. We experimented with a few layouts of the shirt and medal but settled on this format with some text added:

The most important aspect of this type of framing project is conservation. Also the customer might want to wear the medal again. He stated that he did not think he would ever wear it but it has been framed in such a way that it could be very easily removed from the frame and worn if required. In other words, in the true meaning of conservation framing, the items to be framed could be returned to their original states prior to framing with ease. It was decided that apertures around each item would set them off well against the black background.

Here is the finished montage framed to match the montage from the 2014 Invictus Games as they would ultimately hang together.

I must say I was pretty proud to be part of this story but the most exciting part of this job for me was to see the photos, especially the one with the customer giving one of the team member a high-five just after he had won a point. The Georgian Team member's face is a real joy to see and summed up the whole team's emotions throughout the games. Amazing indeed.

I do count myself as very lucky to be part of my customers amazing achievements and this is certainly one of the best behind the scenes stories......so far!

A customer came in a while back with a very impressive story about his experience at the 2014 Invictus Games in London. He was one of the trainers for the sitting volleyball team for GB. The Georgian team were also present at London and sadly did not have the use of trainers like a lot of the other teams at London. So my customer very kindly offered to help the team from Georgia. To begin with there was a language barrier as none of the members of Team Georgia could speak English. Also it was pretty much the first time they had played together. The team ended up finishing 4th, just missing out on a medal. To thank our customer the Georgian Team presented him with a signed shirt and a ceremonial dagger with a sheath from Georgia. After a while considering what to do with these items, he decided to frame them.

The dagger was quite a heavy item so the back of the board had to be suitably reinforced.

The items could well be used again and so conservation framing techniques were used throughout.

A photo and text were also added to provide context to the Georgian Team items.

Each item had a window mount cut out from black mount board to provide a 3D effect.

The finished frame was chosen to match the colour of the shirt.

The customer wanted to frame the items as he said he did not think he would ever achieve anything better professionally in his life. Well, he turned out to be a little wrong on that statement and you can read about that in our next blog article.

The Battle of Britain 75th Anniversary fly past at Goodwood was an amazing gathering of planes involved in the Battle of Britain and was an incredible event to attend back in 2015. A customer recently decided to frame a selection of photographs taken at the event. The lady at the top of the montage is the customer's Mother. There were many more photos than this to begin with so the customer chose this selection of nine photos to be arranged around a poster of planes that flew during the Battle of Britain. A simple off white colour mount to be combined with a 20mm grey / charcoal profile was chosen for the mount and frame.

A caption was added to be positioned at the base of the mount to read: "Take off from Westhampnett for Battle of Britain 75th Anniversary 15th Sept 2015"

As with every multiple aperture project, a plan is a must:

Hopefully everything adds up to achieve the outside size of the frame.....!

Once the mount was cut out the layout looks like this:

All the photos and the poster were dry mounted onto thicker card so that they do not cockle up over time with temperature and humidity changes in the final hanging position.

Add the frame and glass and viola, or rather Tally Ho!

A really impressive looking montage for an amazing gathering. Probably the last time so many Spitfires and Hurricanes would be in the same place and time and actually flew as well. As a child I often made the Hurricane Airfix model and I am still completely in awe of the Battle of Britain planes whenever I am lucky enough to hear them fly overhead. We are particularly lucky living near to Goodwood aerodrome as the twin seater Spitfire often flies over. A very distinctive sound indeed.